Author's Chapter Notes:
THIS STORY IS RATED M FOR A REASON! It's been awhile, yes? I apologize, truly, for your wait. Between life and writer's block, there was no way to write the last few chapters the way I wanted to write it for a good while. Fortunately, the words have since come. Here they are.
She was eleven years old when Tommy Pfannkoch started giving her trouble.
"I like you," he'd told her on a Friday afternoon as they walked to the subway. She hadn't blushed or blinked… but they'd held hands for almost five whole minutes.
Two days later, her world fell apart.
"Girls are gross," he announced to his friends after school. He'd looked her right in the eye as he said it. After three well-placed kicks to Tommy's lower body, Olivia had walked away with a head held high and eyes welling over with the tears of She Who Has Avenged Her Pride.
"He's probably a gay," Serena announced that night before bed, her statement complete with an obscene hand gesture. "Don't let him get to you."
Two grade school altercations later, it was clear that Olivia was having a hard time taking her mother's advice.
As Olivia sat in front of the principal's office, poker straight and poker faced, her heart beating a million miles a minute, she focused on Serena's reaction to the news that her daughter had shoved a boy into the Girls' Room.
She'd never been in trouble. She hoped that would work to her favor.
"Pst! Benson!" Tommy hissed from the bench across from her, interrupting her desperate strategizing.
"We're not allowed to talk," she replied sullenly.
"Yeah, well girls like you… all you do is talk. Figures you'll do anything you're told. My dad says your mom's a lousy drunk and makes you clean house and buy groceries."
"At least my mom doesn't make eyes at Puerto Rican mechanics," she hissed.
When buying of auto parts, Mrs. Pfannkoch had a reputation for enjoying a discount or two.
"Shut up or I'll tell… I'll say that you told us all how your mom's a wino."
"My mom's not a wino!"
Which, to her knowledge, had been true; Serena was not a fan of wine.
The authoritative tapping of heels echoed from down the hallway, announcing the arrival of the wino in question. Serena, resplendent in work clothes and trench coat, came around the corner in full sail, her eyes sharply assessing the situation.
"Tommy," she greeted coldly. Olivia fought the urge to laugh at the boy's uncomfortable squirming; Serena was good at glaring.
Apparently, the glare worked on Principal Brewster as well as it had worked on Tommy Pfannkoch; Olivia walked out of the office with nothing more than a kind warning not to talk to boys who had nothing nice to say.
"Although," Serena remarked dryly as they crossed the street for the subway. "I would submit that Mr. Brewster's directive can be amended to 'Don't Talk to Boys, Period.'"
Olivia frowned. "What about friends?"
"Libby, boys can't be friends. They can't be friends, they can't be boyfriends, and they sure as hell can't be fathers."
"Why?"
"Well, boys are well enough, I suppose," she mused thoughtfully. "It's when they grow up to be men that the troubles start. You, Libby, are going to have to learn how to deal with your little boyfriends when they turn into pushy, overbearing men. 'Young men want to be faithful, and are not; old men want to be faithless, and cannot.' It's better not to bother."
"But what about Jack or Danny?" Olivia protested. "Or any of the other boys who are nice to me?"
There, at the Bedford Ave subway, Serena bent down, her grey eyes searching and sharp. "Listen to me, Olivia. Boys want one thing, and they'll get it from you anyway they can. Stay away from them."
"But what about friends?" she asked again.
Serena stood with an exasperated sigh, grabbing Olivia's hand and continuing down the stairs to the subway.
"You don't need that many friends. You don't need anyone, really. After a few years you just... learn to let them all go."
Olivia never knew what her mother had told Principal Brewster, but Tommy Pfannkoch never looked directly at her again.
***
"Pregnancy, motherhood, kids… it all changes you," some simpering blond actress on "The View" proclaims. "It's so profound."
As much as it chagrins Olivia to admit it, Dumb Actress is right. She can't shake off the feeling that she's been taken over by some extremely maternal alien virus. A virus that weighs roughly twenty pounds and makes her eyes and breasts leak.
Tight pants, crying jags and nursing bras be damned, her daughter has given her no regrets.
***
"How's she been?" Elliot asks, throwing his jacket across a kitchen chair. He swipes a beer from her fridge before moving into the living room to flop beside her on the couch.
"She cried. All day. Anything happen at work?"
He shrugs, reaching for Sophie. "The usual."
"Perverts, perps and paperwork?" she asks.
He smirks. "Good one."
"Thanks. I've got a lot of good ones. Must be because the only conversations I have are with myself."
Elliot hums absently, brushing wisps of Sophie's hair back from her forehead. "Does she feel hot to you?" He lifts Sophie over to Olivia. "Feel her."
She does. "I know. She's still a little warm… I took her temp earlier, though. She should be fine."
"Should we take it again?"
"I just did it."
He shrugs. "Couldn't hurt."
"You think her temperature went from ninety-seven to a fever in the last fifteen minutes?"
"It could explain why she's been crying."
"She's tired. She took a twenty-minute nap today."
He sighs. "You want me to do it? Where's the thermometer?"
"No, Elliot, I don't want you to take her temperature again. Trust me."
"If she has a fever-"
"She's fine."
"-it'll just get worse-"
"So, what? I can't take a goddamn temperature now? Jesus, Elliot!"
In the ensuing quiet interspersed with Sophie's whimpers, she can't help but hear Silence, Awkward Silence to the tune of U2's "Sunday, Bloody Sunday."
She needs to get out more.
"Give me Sophie, please."
"You wanna talk about this?" Elliot asks flatly. He makes no move to relinquish the baby. "Or are we gonna pretend you're upset that I want to check her temperature."
She glares.
"Alright then," he sighs, standing up. He brushes his lips against Sophie's forehead before passing her to Olivia.
"I'm going out."
Her back stiffens. "What? Where?"
"Just… out," he sighs. "Be back soon."
An embarrassing desire to clutch his sleeve rises within her. She squelches it. The last thing she needs is to turn into Kathy-
Where'd that come from?
"Call me if you need me," he says quietly. And then he's gone.
***
There is an ominous silence from Sophie's bassinet as his steps count a slow tattoo toward the door.
Elliott is leaving.
"Don't," she whispers, and her voice weighs too much for the frail bones of her throat.
The doorknob is a period that his fingers curl around like a receding fog, and something cuts her lungs off at the thought of the end of one sentence, at the beginning of another.
He stills. The fog spreads, its pale wisps and tendrils wrapping coolly around her feet and ankles. The coldness spreads further as she feels water begin to rise beneath the mist.
Cold cold cold.
"Libby."
It's a whisper, and it only chills her further.
"Mom," she whispers back, but her eyes don't leave Elliot.
"Turn around, Libby."
The water rises higher. Elliot's back is still to her, his hand is still on the fucking doorknob.
Cold cold cold.
"Let him go, Libby."
No, she wants to say. Firmly, assertively. No. This doesn't happen. This can't happen.
"Elliot," she croaks.
Her shoulders heave erratically, twice for every even rise and fall of his, up and down and up and down and finally his head turns so his eyes can stare at her evenly.
"This isn't real."
He only says it once, but his voice echoes in her head long after the click of the lock and the water keeps on rising.
***
"Olivia!"
And suddenly her eyes are as open as her mouth, the sound of her gasp accompanying the large rush of oxygen to her lungs, the odd throbbing on her forehead.
"Elliot…?"
Elliot frowns down at her, his fingers tight around her shoulders. "Easy… you were having a nightmare."
She swallows, runs her hand down her face. Her heart is racing and Elliot... "Where's your shirt?"
He yawns. "I was sleeping."
"I woke you?"
"Yep." He stands, yawning. She can hear the sound of his nails absently scratching his stomach as he shuffles back out to the couch. He pauses in the doorway. "I'm surprised she managed to sleep through all the, uh…" he gestures vaguely toward the bassinet. "Hyperventilating."
Her fingers reach up to her forehead. "Yeah, she didn't really nap… wait, why does my head hurt?"
He shrugs. "I woke you up."
"How…" she trails off, watching him flick the air with his index finger. "What the hell, Elliot," she hisses. "Did you thump me?"
"Nightmare's over," he yawns again.
She's not so sure.
"Thank me later," he whispers loudly.
He turns to leave again and a still frame from her dream resurfaces; there's no doorknob but the silhouette of him is the same and before she can think she whispers, "Hey."
He turns back again, eyebrows raised. Her mouth works to ask the question that sits in her gut like a rock but the words stay down and no sound comes out.
"You need tucked in?" he asks dryly.
She huffs. "No. It's just…"
Eyebrows raised, he waits patiently. "Yes?"
"Did you want… are we supposed to talk about earlier?"
He sighs, running his hand down his face. "Not now, Liv. I've got an early morning."
"It's just that…"
"Olivia," he groans.
"…you've been sleeping on my couch for months."
He frowns. "S'there a problem?"
Words. She needs them.
"I'm here for you," he continues. "I'm here 'cause you asked me to stay, but if this… if you want me to leave—"
Her eyes snap up to his; she's scared shitless to realize she can't read them. "Do you want to leave?" she asks, her throat constricting around the question.
She can feel his annoyance flare from across the room.
"What the hell kind of question is that?"
Silence.
Her voice, see, it's so heavy… her throat muscles tense and flex and try to push it out…
But nothing.
Silence.
Elliot is staring at her face, bullish and waiting. Her cowardice is a matador's cape.
"I don't know… I never know what you want," she whispers.
Her words may as well have been, 'Toro! Toro!' because he's in front of her in an instant and it takes every ounce of her willpower to not flinch at his sudden nearness. She can smell soap and sleep on him as he towers over her, but then he bends closer, his hands flat on either side of her hips. Too close, she thinks. Too close.
"I've been sleeping on your couch for months," he hisses, throwing her words back in her face, only these… these words are doused in acid and anger and something else, something that picks and nicks and rips and rends something in her chest… she exhales shakily.
"I sleep on that goddamned couch and I go to work with a bad back. I talk to my kids, I go to their games, I see Kathy and then I'm here. I left today and I came back here."
Abort! Abort! her brain is screaming, and every inhale and exhale is a déjà vu.
"I come here," he repeats. "To you. To your kid. To your couch."
His eyes are twin butane flames glaring out at her from underneath the harsh slant of his angry brow. His breath washes over her face, a combination of toothpaste and Elliot and she's dizzy and he looks the same way, scary and dizzy and pissed.
"You take the time you need to figure your shit out," he breathes harshly. "But don't- don't sit there and act like you don't know what I want."
Want.
The word hangs heavy in the air between them until it grows, it uncurls, unfurls outside and low in her abdomen, conquering and coating her limbs in tension and craving. She can feel her heart galumphing in her chest, the boisterous beats of a clumsy percussionist; she breathes and breathes again, reveling the feel of being stranger in her own skin.
Elliot.
He's still breathing heavily, almost into her mouth. Her tongue flicks out to wet her lips.
"Let him go," Serena whispers.
Elliot is looking at her with a mixture of anger and
uncertainty. "Liv?"
He's here, she thinks. He's here.
Her mother's whisper echoes, fades.
Breathe in, breathe out.
Elliot.
"Show me," she whispers.
And then it's fast.
So fast.
He shows her.
He pushes in and it's his mouth, it's Elliot's mouth and it's weird if she thinks about it but it would be weirder to stop and a moan goes up between them, she can't say which one of them it came from, only that it guides her hands up his arms, to his shoulders and neck, her nails dragging light and heavy and desperate wanting, wanting…
He works over her mouth like a mad thing, like a monster, growling low in his throat as she sucks on his tongue and bites his bottom lip and shhh, shhh she thinks at the sound. The baby…
And then his lips move to nip and suck at the sensitive skin on the side of her neck and her concern is overshadowed by the realization that it's been days and weeks and months since he's touched her and even longer since he's been inside—
"Can you be quiet?" he whispers harshly, panting against her neck. "Say you'll be quiet."
She nods rapidly, it's enough for him and he turns back to the matter at hand.
The blanket is torn away from her and she is there in her cotton sleep pants and he is there, he is there in his boxers and back at her lips and down at her hips he is grinding into her with himself, he's so, so hard and there's the spot he keeps hitting and fuck…
"Gah," she moans.
He shushes her with his mouth. "Quiet," he orders.
"Don't… ah… don't tell me what to do," she hisses.
"Shhhh…"
His fingers move down, down, down over her breasts and across the new softness of her belly and down into the waist of her sleep pants and then her underwear and any annoyance at his bossy-during-foreplay attitude is forgotten as he slides further down and in and parts her, delving into what she is guessing to be an embarrassing amount of wetness…
He groans appreciatively as his finger finds her, his mouth moving on her breast as he dips into her wetness and rubs circles around her clit… and that leaves her and her wide open mouth, gasping for air as she arches back against the pillow.
"Open," he mumbles against her skin and she complies, her knees falling further apart as she clutches at his shoulders and he slides two fingers inside and his thumb keeps circling and it's good. It's so, so good.
Hormones and an abstinent several months means she's writhing wordlessly underneath him within moments, her jaw alternating between clenching and almost-unhinged as he continues to rub circles, circles, small circles and life's a circle and here they are again except now there's a baby and a bassinet beside the bed and please please Sophie don't wake up, just keep sleeping and let mommy explode…
Her orgasm ascends, an impatient wave running through her muscles like a live wire and she fights to keep from yelling.
Breathe, breathe, breathe…
Elliot rides it out with her, his finger continuing to slide in and out, his hips steadily bucking into her hipbone. He sounds like he's run a marathon already.
"Now," she grunts, and it's unladylike and impatient but it works because he removes his fingers and starts sliding her pants and underwear further down with all the grace of a bear and she moves her legs to help him and then his hands disappear again as he yanks down his boxers. His erection bobs free and she reaches for him.
"Don't," he says, his voice quiet and harsh. "It's gonna be quick enough as it is."
He moves down, her legs on either side of his hips. He groans quietly, placing the tip of himself at her entrance.
"Go," she urges, her hands flexing against his ass in an
attempt to get closer, to get in.
In.
IN.
Fucking. In.
With another groan, he slides in slowly, his face buried between her neck and shoulder as the muscles of his back bunch and release with the tension. She feels like she might split in two, both from the size of him and the giddy, relieved sex grin she can feel on her face.
In.
In.
Gah.
He bottoms out inside her and holds for several seconds, his breath harsh and loud.
Move, she thinks. Move move move.
She exhales a gasp in relief as he begins to thrust, reveling in the friction, the feel of him inside as he rolls his hips slowly against her.
"Ahh," she breathes.
He grunts in response. "Good?"
She nods, lets the noises his thrusts are eliciting do the talking. So good, she thinks. He fucks so, so good.
"Liv," he groans.
And it isn't the first time, because she's facing him and he's not with Kathy and they're not fucking against her locker but it's still so, so good and she flexes her muscles along his length, basking in the sound it draws from him, in the increased speed of his thrusts, in the secret words he whispers against her neck.
"Wh-what'd you say?" she gasps, moving against him greedily. He doesn't answer her, pumping into her faster, his words spilling out against her skin as she strains to focus, to focus, to focus…
That spot…
"Gah," she moans.
And then she hears him, hears the words spilling out on every breath against her and she knows.
It's not their first time again.
"I know you," he'd told her that day in the precinct and she'd been skeptical before bending over and letting him fuck her against a row of lockers.
I know you.
It had been comforting to hear.
But nothing… nothing compares to the words he's now painting onto her skin with every thrust.
"I want you," he murmurs into her neck. "I want you I want you I want you-"
She can feel her walls clench around him as her body tenses with the anticipation of coming…
He growls, threads his arms underneath her back, pulls her closer and drives into her faster…
"Harder," she gasps.
And then it happens, he hits a place inside over and over and over and over and OVER-
"God!" she cries.
When she opens her eyes again he is still above her, his eyes wild, and she can feel him harden even further inside her as he moves and it's Elliot it's Elliot it's Elliot-
"I want you, too," she whispers back. "I do. I want you."
He bucks into her harder, and only the flesh of her shoulder in his mouth keeps his groan from echoing through the bedroom when he comes.
***
Expectations. She's had them.
She did not expect this.
She clutches Elliot's weight to her as he collapses, holding him to her for long moments as his breathing evens out.
He eventually lifts himself off of her, slowly pulling out. He grimaces at her wince. "You okay?"
She nods, and means it.
He flops onto the other side of the bed with a groan.
"God, I've missed mattresses." He catches her eye and frowns. "What?"
No words. "I… nothing."
"Tell me."
"Nothing, Elliot. Promise. Go to sleep."
After a quick trip to the bathroom she crawls back into bed, shutting her eyes and willing sleep to return, willing any further nightmares to be thwarted by the six foot two thermal generator in bed beside her.
Minutes pass as she waits for him to start snoring.
"Wanna talk about it?"
She starts. Did he want a highlights reel of the last hour? "What?"
"Your nightmare," he clarifies.
"Oh."
Breathe in.
Breathe out.
Breathe in.
Breathe out.
Breathe in—
"Or not," he mumbles.
She pulls the comforter up higher, clutching it tightly between her fingers. "It… was nothing."
"Didn't sound like nothing."
"Well, what did it sound like then?" she asks testily.
He sighs. "You first."
Fine.
Fine.
"You left," she huffs.
"When?"
"My dream… nightmare. Whatever. You left."
"In the nightmare."
"Mmhm."
"Then what?"
"What?"
"I left. Then what happened?"
She frowns at the ceiling. "Nothing."
"Tell me," he insists.
"Nothing happened," she huffs. "You left. That's it. My mother was there."
She can hear his wheels turning. "Huh."
"'Huh?' What the hell's that supposed to mean?"
"Nothing, nothing. I just figured… I don't know, you were pretty worked up."
"So?"
"So I figured it was about Sophie or someone dying or…"
the bed moves slightly as he shifts. "Something serious."
The noise she makes drips of disbelief. "You leaving wouldn't be serious?"
"I always come back, don't I?"
Her mouth forms the words without her consent. "You didn't with Kathy."
Silence.
Breathe in.
Breathe out—
"Sorry," she whispers.
"Careful."
"I didn't mean—"
"Yeah, I think you did," he mutters acidly.
"That isn't what I meant to say—"
He sits up, rests his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands. "Let's get one thing straight, Olivia: I don't leave. I've never left. I'm here for my kids. I'm here for my family. I'm always here."
"Elliot—"
"You want to talk about abandonment or whatever, fine, but you'd better be ready talk, too."
"Me?"
"Gitano. Oregon. The," he clears his throat uncomfortably.
"First time."
"The first time- you left."
"Yeah, after you told me to."
Her indignant huff is a lame comeback, and she knows it.
"Look, Liv… I'm not leaving," he says quietly.
She rolls her eyes.
"I mean it," he insists.
The ceiling has never looked more interesting. "What about…" she falters, breaks, pulls it together. "What if we don't work?"
Silence, Awkward Silence.
"Then we don't," he answers after a moment. "But I'll still be here."
Despite her racing thoughts and sore muscles, sleep takes her in a matter of minutes. She dreams of her mother in their favorite bookstore.
Elliot's snoring form is still there when she wakes up to a night sky as it surrenders to the dawn. Years and blood and fights and flirting has all been the sum of an equation that equals him, here in her bed with no ring on his finger, snoring his ass off before he goes to work in a dimly lit room for the promise of a shitty pension.
Let him go, Serena whispers.
Olivia shakes her head.
She can't.
What if they can actually pull this off?
This is real, she tells herself, and Serena is silent.
The sun pinkens the sky, Sophie begins making hungry sounds in her bassinet, and Elliot's alarm goes off in the living room.
He mutters deprecatory remarks about sleepless nights and old age, swatting her ass as he gets out of bed. "Feed the kid, Benson," he throws over his shoulder on his way to the bathroom.
Forty-five minutes later, he dumps his coffee mug in the sink and walks out the door, brushing his lips quickly against her hair on the way.
"See you later," he says casually.
This is real, she tells herself again.
This is real.
***
Chapter End Notes:
Serena's quote regarding the faithful/lessness of men is from Oscar Wilde. If you're still here, thank you for reading. If all goes according to plan, there will be one more chapter and an epilogue.
